Watching William

When I started dating my girlfriend I knew I'd be in for a handful even if I didn't know how much of a handful. Why you ask? Because I would not only be a boyfriend, but I'd be a father figure to her 1 year old son. I thought I'd share with all of you my experiences being a college age father figure and the humor I've found in it.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Yes I know it's been a while. I'm only going to update this blog when William does something I feel like writing about from now on anyway.

Like his first stitches.

Last night I had just tucked William into bed around 8:30 when he inquires "Can you get me some water daddy?" With a "Sure thing" I took his cup and made it to the bathroom and back to his room without spilling a drop of water or blood. The same could not be said for my little speedster. He had hopped out of bed to follow me, and as I had turned around he did too and, trying to get to his bed before I did, tripped and came face first with the edge of his wooden bedframe.

And now fast forward to the emergency room.

He had a pretty good gash, and like any good face wound it bled and bled and bled all the way there, then stopped severely bleeding as soon as we walked in the door. William, calmed down a little, was a trooper through and through. I told him to look for words and to ask me what they said. As half an hour turned into an hour I told him a story to keep his mind off his busted lip, and he told me a story about the same thing I had just told him a story about. I also regaled him with tales of his mother and my own encounters with stitches.

Que 9:30. We were called in so that a nurse could assess how big of an emergency our emergency was. He was given emergency #4, and no, I don't mean he was 4th in line, I mean if you had a big list of 1 being "They're going to die" and 5 being "just walk it off" he was a 4, and the line for 4's was over an hour long.

William stayed tough through it all. Never crying. Never saying it hurt, even when we asked. (He did throw quite a fit when he was initially wounded I should mention. Lots of crying.) He played a game based on Disney's 'Frozen' on his mom's tablet and colored on a folder with a highlighter. Come 10:45, when we were called into the operating room, he was feeling energetic about everything.

11:30 struck and a charismatic doctor came in, explained what he was going to do, and turned to leave. Before he could I asked him to tell William what he just told us, that he deserved to know what was coming up. The doctor explained the best he could, and although William didn't understand I hope that he felt calmed by the fact he was involved. For the remainder of the night I always asked the doctors to tell William everything they were doing, and told William to ask any questions that came to his mind. A nurse came in and applied a numbing agent to his lips, and then gave him some coloring pages along with some crayons. That small act did wonders at keeping him occupied, and I can't thank her enough.

12:30. Tired. Doctor comes in, asks if it's been half an hour. Yup.

1 AM. Nurse who brought crayons in comes in and says she needs to wrap William up like a burrito so he can't move his hands. William very much enjoyed being a tex-mex menu option.

1:15 and the real work begins. Two doctors come in, one to do stitches, the other to hold William's head. Apparently kids are real screamers when they see a guy jamming a needle into their face and they can't feel it. Not William though. Oh no. Before anything started he was talking up a storm about burritos, and how he was a sandwich burrito, and how he had potatoes inside him.

The doctors all said he was the "Chillest kid they've ever seen". They applied a needle to add more numbing agent to the lip, and from there William lay still, watching as the doctor sewed his lip shut. The only time he even talked was to correct us on the fact he had gone fishing with his Uncle Will, not his Aunt TeeTee. 4 stitches in and the doctor in charge of holding his head gave up and said "Well, I'm not needed here." and left the room. 6 stitches in William was asleep. According to the doctors that was the first time a little kid had ever not moved, and the first time they'd fallen asleep on the table. 7 stitches and he was done.

At 1:30. We had to wait till 2 to go home due to paperwork.

Flash to this morning? His first words after looking in the mirror were "I like my stitches."

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

William is officially at the age where he has begun telling lies to get out of being in trouble, lies to get out of telling us things, and lies just because he doesn't feel like talking. It is driving both his mom and I, because it is the best word, bonkers.

Of course a kid will lie to get out of trouble. I've never foreseen William being anymore noble than any kid his age. I know he won't take the blame for something he did that he knows will get him in trouble. This is something I would like to break him of. The punishment for lying is double what the punishment would be if he told the truth. I've yet to see how, if at all, this will work, as it may just lead him to find more ways to lie.

What is worse, and hurts much more in my opinion, is William's hesitancy to talk about what he has been doing with us. If he was at his grandma's, or at gymnastics, or even just at the dinner table talking about his day at daycare, usually we have to poke and prod to get more out of him than "Ummm I don't know". Usually we know he knows, especially if we ask him right after he was just doing something, and we can't figure out why. Perhaps he thinks that not saying anything will keep him from getting in trouble.

I've always hoped that William and I would have the excellent relationship I've had with my parents, that I could go to them with anything and, no matter what it was, they would do all they could to help me rather than meet what I had said with anger (on most occasions). I've tried this approach with William, but he still seems reluctant to share his thoughts.

Perhaps I just need to give the kid time. Perhaps I am too naive to think that I will ever be his confidant. Perhaps I am too ignorant to know whether or not this is normal three year old behavior. Perhaps I've been too harsh with punishments for lying so now he fears talking to me about anything. Perhaps it is I who need to change.

Whatever it is, the kid's a real blabber mouth if you ever mention Iron Man in his presence.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

I realize because of the gulfs of time between each update on this blog that William's progress may be impossible to gauge. I apologize for this, and I hope that anything left out can be extrapolated to the degree necessary for enjoyment of the blog. I also realize that I have promised to continue updates before, and have failed horribly at these deadlines due to my preference for never missing an update of my webcomic. Thus, I will not make that promise. This blog will update when I have something to say, but it will still be on Wednesdays.

William and I got our first Father-Son video game the other day, a game which I am sure he will look back with more fondness than I, a game by the title: Lego Star Wars III. A game that I will argue is more challenging than Dark Souls. A game which stresses the very limits of my abilities. A game that might be called Star Wars, but should really be called "William! The Red button! No! The Red one! UP! UP! No! Too far up!"

As a poor college student, I haven't been able to afford any of the Star Wars movies, so William's education rests almost solely on the movies we've been able to find at the local library, and the Clone Wars tv series. As of this moment that would be episode 1: The Phantom Menace, which raises the weird question: Why is William obsessed with Darth Vader? William loves Darth Vader, or as he calls him, Darth Bater. I don't think he has quite come to realize Darth Vader is a bad guy, anyway, William's Star Wars preferences has no bearing on the point of this post, which is William and my first foray into co-op gaming, a tradition which can only get better.

As it turns out, William, as a three year old, is actually quite good at moving his character. He picked up how to move and hit things pretty easily, with only a few pit falls and "Daddy! Help!"s, although he still becomes confused on how to move in an exact direction at times, up usually is up-left, left is usually left-down, etc, etc. William's main hang-up is his insatiable curiosity about doors and windows. He loves them, or, to be more specific, he loves to possibility of what could be on the opposite side. He will run at a window for five minutes, becoming more and more aggravated at the video game designer's gall to put something that looked like a door or window into a spot that is really just a wall.

As he is furiously swinging a lightsaber at the most unbreakable door in the universe, I usually am the one left high and dry needing a character with the force to move something that is actually in the way of level progress. After the first few levels I have come to realize that story mode is not for William and I, and instead we should focus our efforts on free play. In free play I can be any character I wish, and don't need William to understand the mission in order to complete it.

William loves the game, and I love watching his face as droids fly at the wall as he learns the proper use of the 'b' button.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

I'm gonna tell you guys a big secret: Parenting is hard.
It's hard dealing with a kid who won't listen when you tell him to do something.
It's hard knowing how to discipline and punish, especially as the child grows and the rules need to be updated.
It's hard trying to divide your time between work, school, free time and kid time.
It's hard integrating education in play.
It's hard developing a rewards system that works.
But most of all it's hard switching from one to the next, as some conglomeration of difficulty which increases daily as the rest of the world vies for attention.

William is an amazing kid. One day he'll be as sweet as can be. He'll read stories, he'll say please and thank you, and he'll sit still long enough to learn some letters. Other days he'll be the terror of the house, running, screaming "No!", and generally being a mess. I realize that in many ways this sounds like every other kid, but William will always be unique, special to me because he's the kid I care about all of these things. I care about why he is doing what he is, why he is acting the way he is. The way I deal with him will influence what he grows up into. He could grow up into a scientist, a teacher, a soldier, anything depending on what I play with him, how I discipline him, and how I teach him.

But most of all, I want him to grow up to be a guy I would want to hang out with. A guy I would call a good guy. For the time being I have to be a parent, not a friend, so that he can grow up into a guy I can call a good son, and a friend.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

For christmas this past year William received perhaps the greatest gift ever, the Imaginext Ogre. (Which can be seen here.) Although his mom was less than ecstatic, I was instantly drawn to the toy ever since I saw it gazing at me from the upper shelves of Toys R Us. The sounds. The range of movement. The size. The man shaped hole in the feet. The Ogre is no ordinary kids toy, it is the epitome of knight crushing monsters.

Or so I thought.

It is here where I revel in the amazingness of children's minds. When William began to play with the Ogre, whom he has taken to calling "Yogre", he immediately set it to work repairing his cars, castles, and armor. It seems that his new toy tools fit perfectly in Yogre's green, meaty fists, which to William meant that he was an engineer, a mechanic, a carpenter, and a builder. He worked for the king, not against him. I found this an amazing feat, and felt worse for having assumed Yogre was some angry, unintelligent brute.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

I'm officially starting this blog with a semi-blank slate. I apologize to those of you who are familiar with it, but I simply could not keep up with all of the things I had to do and update this blog at the same time. As I fell behind I fell into a sort of blogging depression. The task of catching up with all that I had not written became daunting, and the joys of writing Unconscious became my only real passion for Time For Hugs.
Something interesting happened a few days ago though. My spaceship abc's poster skyrocketed in popularity, and my site, while not viral, received many more hits than it ever had before. With this influx of viewers I decided I needed to step up my game... so here we are.
So who is William? And why am I watching him? When this blog started he was simply my girlfriend's one year old son. Now, as I sit in our apartment, watching Curious George with him next to me, he is more than just my girlfriend's son. He may not be blood, but he is my family, and I love him as my own.
William is now two, and being two he is obsessed with the words "No", "Mine", and "Why?" He is extremely verbose and talkative, although his temper often puts his manners and speech far from his mind. William is the Hulk. Unstoppable, anger prone, easily distracted by shiny things, but also possessing a keen intellect and impressive communication skills.
He's also a pain in the butt sometimes, which he must of gotten from his mother.
Because he obviously didn't get it from me.
I think he got my looks.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Dear William,
I write this letter with the hopes that one day you will read it and perhaps understand why I had to leave every weekend. I hope you read it and will understand how hard it was to look into your eyes and tell you goodbye when you asked me to stay. I hope you read it and will forgive me, and barring that at least understand that I did what I thought was right, even if it was not what I wanted.

Depending on when you read this (either soon after my writing this as your mom has said she will read this to you, or when you are older and perhaps do not even recall the days you asked me to stay) it will probably matter very little. But as a writer I need this out now, because you and your mom mean the world to me, and I hope that through writing I may be absolved of my mistakes, and find comfort in the airing of my difficulties.

Recently I had to drop you off with your great grandparents because your mom was at work and it was past your bed time. You had a little smile and an outstretched hand, eagerly saying, "Come on Daddy, come on." Your eyes had a hint of sadness, like you knew I was leaving and you sought to draw out the night as long as possible, and I have no doubt you knew exactly what was happening, because it is how it always has happened.

I couldn't leave then. You and your mother have this insane ability to look at me with those blue eyes and make me stay. So I followed you in, thinking that I would set you on the couch and then leave. I sat you down, immediately for you to pat the seat beside you and give me that same little smile. "Sit daddy, sit." What was I to do. I had to go, it was late and I had school the next morning. I kissed your forehead and said I loved you and walked out. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, hearing you cry and run for me as I closed the door behind me.

I'm sorry I had to go William. One day I'll drop you off to sleep and I'll be there, every night. I promise you this. I had to leave because I don't have the education to make the money to get the house so that we, your mom, you and I, can be a normal family yet. Hopefully by the time you can read this we are, and you never have to see me go again. I know it's hard for you to understand it, even if you are older, but I had to do it.

I can't wait to watch you grow William, and if you are reading this and have already grown then I hope you have turned into every bit the man I know you will. I'll see you this weekend, be you big or small.